


So Green

by masquerace



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Baking, Canon Compliant, Character Development, Character Study, Heartbreak, M/M, Unrequited Crush, kind of? it's a lot of Dex's internal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 10:44:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19424368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/masquerace/pseuds/masquerace
Summary: Dex has always been best with his hands kept busy, so of course he ends up helping Bitty bake. The call of the Haus pulls him in like a hug, and he really shouldn't be surprised finding Bitty at its heart.





	So Green

**Author's Note:**

> But still my heart stops without you  
> 'Cause there's something about you  
> That makes me feel alive.  
> If the green left the grass on the other side  
> I would make like a tree and leave.  
> But if I reached for your hand, would your eyes get wide?  
> Who knew the other side could be so green?
> 
> \- The Honey and The Bee (Owl City)

Samwell University was known for more than its status as a gay-friendly school, and that wasn’t the part that interested Dex when he applied. It was the last thing on his mind when he told his parents he’d been accepted. His cousins may have jeered a little when he mentioned he decided to go there, but that wasn’t anything new. Small towns tended to be more conservative. They had all kind of always been pricks. Besides, Dex had never given them any indication that he may have been a one-in-four, as the packet that came with his acceptance letter proclaimed in bold letters. He’d never given _himself_ any indication that may have been the case. And Samwell was known for more than that. 

Their hockey team drew him in for skirting up the leaderboards and making a name for the school as a go-to for the sport. It didn’t hurt that they also offered a substantial four-year scholarship that Dex knew he had the grades to get (And he did get it— _that_ had him more excited than the acceptance letter). The computer science department, staffed by award-winning professors, held ties to several corporations that would make finding a job after graduation less stressful and promised him a real challenge he didn’t get a chance to explore in high school. The campus was the size he was looking for, and it was just far enough away to get out from the cramped confines of his extended family without forcing him to move to the other side of the country.

So what if he had to deal with one of the upperclassmen baking all the time. It was weird, but at least he was good at it. 

The second he met Derek Nurse, his decision to go to Samwell felt like a mistake. Dex knew that he’d have to deal with people he couldn’t stand in college. Knew that it was a part of growing up. He’d always been good at swallowing his words when he didn’t agree with something back home, but Nurse somehow knew exactly which buttons to push to set Dex off. What really got to him was that Nursey had a solid point to some of the things he said, but it was the way he went about saying them—Dex couldn’t let himself give Nurse the smug satisfaction of being right. It was no wonder he started finding solace in Bitty.

Dex always thought Bitty was strange, right from the beginning. Always on the edge of too happy, and he seemed to genuinely care what everyone had to say. It might have been a little because he was Southern, and Northern country runs close enough to the same type of ways while still managing to be completely opposite. Being around Bitty almost felt like home, if just a little off sometimes. 

After a while of him hanging around the Haus kitchen trying to hide without being alone, Bitty put him to work.

“Dex, honey, if you’re going to take up table space in here every day, I’m going to need you to at least help out a little.” Bitty slid a knife across the kitchen table and nodded at the bag of peaches by Dex’s elbow. “Is the knife okay, or do I need to fish out the peeler?”

Dex shook his head. He didn’t mind helping. Helping gave him something to do besides think, and he’d spent too many years trapped in his own head. “Nah, I’ve used a knife before for this.”

“Good.” Bitty flashed him a brilliant smile and looked back to the bowl he was attending to. “It’s ‘bout time someone else made an effort around here.”

And that how it started, Dex figured. He was always better with his hands than with his words, and Bitty gave him something to do. When Betsy broke down for the first time when Dex was at the Haus, that was just one more thing he could do. He’d peel fruit, fix up the appliances, rewire the thermostat when an electrical storm knocked it out of whack. Bitty started texting Dex to ask when he had time to stop by the Haus to help, and Dex started looking forward to those messages.

“Dex, honey, I was thinking you could do something a little different for me today?” 

He’d barely made it through the front door of the Haus when Bitty called out to him from the kitchen doorway. Dex dropped his bag out of the way in the hall and followed him in. He briefly noticed Shitty, Ransom, and Holster playing some video game on the television, but he could care less at that particular moment.

“What’s up? Don’t tell me your mixer broke down. That’s the only thing in this place that hasn’t broken yet, I swear—”

Bitty laughed, and Dex’s stomach did a flip. “No, she’s still chugging on like a champ. Lord, that’d be a mess, wouldn’t it?”

Dex’s cheeks flushed. The room felt warmer than normal, and he briefly considered double checking how Betsy was functioning before letting Bitty bake anything.

“Anyway, I was gonna show you how to make the pie dough I do, if you’re up to the task.” Bitty quirked an eyebrow at him, and Dex realized he was agreeing without thinking.

So Bitty showed him. Dex screwed it up several times before making dough that at least resembled the lump Bitty has done himself, but Bitty never got frustrated with him.

“Now, Dex, honey—” Bitty closed his hand over Dex’s and forced him to pause in rolling the dough out. “Pie dough, or really any pastry dough, is sensitive. It’s gonna pick up whatever you give to it, and that’ll effect how it turns out.”

“So, uh, I’m doing it wrong again?”

Bitty rolled his eyes, but a ghost of a smile stayed on his lips. Dex tried not to stare. “Not _wrong_ per se, but… well maybe a little wrong. Be gentle. This isn’t like bread dough, where you’re supposed to be rough on it.”

Dex tried to relax as he rolled the pin through the dough, and based on Bitty’s grin he did what he was supposed to. The afternoon sun shone through the open curtains of the kitchen window as Bitty prattled on about the differences between working with different types of dough. Dex could see specks of flour floating in the air and framing Bitty’s face, and he realized he could spend hours listening to Bitty talk. Had already spent hours listening to him. The kitchen was pleasantly warm from the preheated oven and the sunlight, making Bitty’s cheeks a little rosy as he spoke.

His heart thudded in his throat. _Shit._

Bitty was that weird kid who baked for who knows what reason, and Dex never had a single inkling that he was… 

“Uh.” Dex hurriedly interrupted Bitty’s train of words. “I think it’s the right thickness.”

Bitty inspected the edge closely. “I think you’re right. Here, let me show you the best way to get this into the tin. You still remember how to prep the blueberry filling, right?”

The smell of pie fresh out of the oven lured the nearby team members into the kitchen with interest obvious in their eyes. Dex tried not to scowl when he saw Nursey’s head peek in over Holster’s shoulder.

“What’d you make this time, brah?” Shitty eyed the pie on the stovetop with interest.

Bitty frowned at him. “Y’all are all vultures, you know. And I didn’t make anything except some dough to store in the freezer. This beauty was all Dex.”

Nursey’s look of interest quickly turned skeptical, and Dex scowled.

Jack wandered into the kitchen with mild interest, and Bitty’s face lit up. Dex doubted anyone else noticed Bitty’s expression change, but he did. It almost felt like the floor gave out from underneath him. He was being ridiculous, feeling like this. Dex knew he never would have acted on any of these newly confusing feelings he had, but that didn’t mean seeing someone he… well, _liked_ clearly have eyes for someone else didn’t sting. He scowled a little harder in case his face decided to betray him.

Despite his heartache, Dex couldn’t just stop baking with Bitty. It kept him useful, kept his hands busy, and Bitty was still fun to be around. Even outside of the Haus kitchen, Dex found himself trying harder to please Bitty. He didn’t let himself think too hard about that in an attempt to keep his heart from splitting completely open. That didn’t stop it from doing so anyway when Jack and Bitty announced their relationship to them a little under a year later.

But Dex kept his mouth shut, except to say “I’m happy for you guys.” 

After all, it wouldn’t do him any good to say anything about how he felt. Jack and Bitty were perfect for each other. He held that thought in his head as he laid on his bed in his dorm later that night and willed himself to keep from shattering apart.


End file.
